The Onyx Review: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal © 2017 Center for Writing and Speaking 2017, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 13–19 Agnes Scott College Cultivating Eyre: Edward Rochester as Jane Eyre’s Doppelgänger Kathryn R. Martel Agnes Scott College

Feminist literary theorists such as Hélène Cixous have argued that women can reclaim what the patriarchy has confiscated by symbolically representing what the female character is thinking in relation to herself rather than men. The autobiographical essence of the narrative employed by Charlotte Brontë in Jane Eyre allows subordination of the male voice and assertion Jane’s physical and psychological freedom within the male realm that has sought to define her limits. The Eyre-Rochester romance may seem counterintuitive to said freedom since Jane’s growing sense of self is so intertwined with that of Rochester, but the dynamic changes when viewing Rochester as her doppelgänger. Brontë constructs Rochester as the male alter-ego of Jane and, while acknowledging that Jane recognizes this extreme gender imbalance, I will argue that Jane admires and is drawn to Rochester because of their deep affinities and essential equality, not what he has as a man what she lacks as a woman. The progressive physical manifestation of their emotional, psychological, and spiritual affinities ultimately leads to a union that fulfills the best in each of them so that they may emerge as equals. In viewing the externalization of Jane’s two psychological parts into a shared whole, which Brontë fuses together in a marriage to the doppelgänger, Jane is in one sense marrying herself. By marrying her doppelgänger Edward Rochester, Jane assimilates her two selves into one and enters an adulthood of self-love that is independent from the Victorian societal standards for women and their marriageability.

“The double . . . comes to be seen as an aspect of the psyche, externalized in the shape of another in the world.” – Rosemary Jackson

s feminist literary theorists have gives to Edward Rochester the freedoms argued, women can reclaim what the Jane could not attain herself within her A patriarchy has confiscated by sociocultural limits as a penniless female symbolically representing what the female orphan. While acknowledging that Jane character is thinking in relation to herself recognizes this extreme gender imbalance, I rather than men.1 This may appear will argue that Jane admires and is drawn to counterintuitive in the Eyre-Rochester Rochester because of their deep affinities romance in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and essential equality, not what he has as a since Jane’s growing sense of self is so man what she lacks as a woman. Brontë intertwined with that of Rochester. The constructs Rochester as the male alter-ego of dynamic changes, however, when viewing Jane, someone whose passions and rebellion Rochester as Jane’s doppelgänger. Brontë against Victorian socialization echoes those of Jane, and which implicitly challenge

1 See Hélène Cixous’ “The Laugh of the Medusa” middle and upper class Victorian social (1975), Karen Horney’s Feminine Psychology, 1922- norms of rationality and constraint. Over the 1937 (1967) and Luce Irigaray’s The Sex Which is course of their romantic relationship, Not One (1977), in which all three authors argue Edward Rochester mirrors the passion and against Freud’s theory of penis-envy and the concept imagination she has been socialized to of women acting on the basis of “lack.”

The Onyx Review, 2017, 2(2) K. R. Martel / CULTIVATING EYRE 14 restrain, and encourages the emergence of this is valid criticism, discussing Bertha these qualities in Jane herself. The Mason is irrelevant to the current argument progressive physical manifestation of their strictly viewing the interactions between emotional, psychological, and spiritual Eyre and Rochester. I believe that an affinities ultimately leads to a union that equality of the sexes is possible within the fulfills the best in each of them so that they novel, and that it is observable in the may emerge as equals. externalization of the couple’s emotional, Acknowledged as the mother of psychological, and spiritual affinities, which poststructuralist feminist theory for her enable the best qualities within each essay “The Laugh of the Medusa,” Hélène character to emerge and thrive. Cixous reacts against Sigmund Freud’s Modern studies of the Doppelgänger in theory of penis envy to emphasize the Gothic and Romantic literature emphasize female individual as a source of power and the psychological implications of the double. accomplishment, and calls upon her to In the case of Jane, her double Rochester reclaim this power through writing. Brontë, represents the more imaginative and through Jane Eyre, exercises this power powerful aspects of Jane’s psyche that have directly by constructing a fictitious been restrained since childhood for “the sake autobiographical narrative that subordinates of cultural continuity” (Jackson 46). As a the male voice and asserts Jane’s physical child, Jane suffers physical and verbal abuse and psychological freedom within the male from her cousin John that results in a realm that has sought to define her limits. passionate outburst against him. Jane’s By viewing Rochester as Jane’s assertiveness while defending herself against doppelgänger, we can recognize that he is her socially superior cousin is deemed often the only character who consistently animalistic in comparison to Victorian encourages, articulates, and illuminates expectations of docility in young women. In Jane’s repressed self, thus acting as an agent attempting to physically restrain and punish of her growth and development into Jane for her transgressive behavior, the autonomy and freedom. In anti-feminist servants lock the “mad cat” in the red room criticism of the novel, the Eyre-Rochester (Brontë 9).3 Jane observes an alternate relationship is viewed as a manifestation of vision of herself within the looking-glass, false consciousness on Jane’s part and the allowing a self-discovery and understanding whole work cannot be viewed as fully of the social implications of her passionate feminist due to the ill-treatment of Bertha nature. Fear at the sight of the “half fairy, Mason, Rochester’s mad wife kept locked half imp” that does not reflect her physical away in the attic, that is permeated by the self represents the social shame and danger negative influences of imperialism.2 While that could arise out of being a defiant female (Brontë 11). Her later acceptance of her limits in relation to Victorian rationality and 2 With modern scholarship on the negative influences constraint forces Jane to hide her of imperialism and the response to Jane Eyre in the prequel novel Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys imaginative side, relegating it to periods of (1966), anti-feminist criticism tends to focus on the poor treatment of Bertha Mason by Edward Rochester as well as by Brontë as the writer in 3 The childhood experience of the red room echoes constructing her. Examples of this anti-feminist critic throughout the book in Jane’s supernatural fantasies can be found in Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s “Three that allow the escape of her imprisoned double self as Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism” exhibited in the looking-glass (Gilbert and Gubar (1985) and Susan Meyer’s “Colonialism and the 340-341). Figurative Strategy in Jane Eyre” (1990).

The Onyx Review, 2017, 2(2) K. R. Martel / CULTIVATING EYRE 15 self-reflection and expression through art. psychological essence of Jane for Rochester Brontë constructs the duality of Jane through to reflect on (Brontë 108). Rochester’s the connotations of the two parts of her insight to Jane’s artwork shows that he name. Thus, Jane begins the battle between understands and accepts Jane’s duality. Jane her two selves: the humble servitude of says she was not able to adequately express “plain Jane” and the imaginative, boundary- her mental ideas on canvas; she merely defying sensibility in “Eyre.” “secured the shadow” of her thought (Brontë Jane’s restlessness in restraining her 108). Rochester essentially becomes the second self often manifests itself in socially voice of Jane’s imaginative impulses, which rebellious thought. Jane contemplates: she often stifles due to Victorian civility and “Women are supposed to be very calm rationality. This scene allows the creation of generally but women feel just as men a safe space in which Jane can express her feel...they suffer from too rigid a restraint, dual self without the shame and punishment too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men she received at Gateshead Hall or Lowood would suffer...” (Brontë 93). Brontë School. The first sit-down between Jane and immediately introduces the reader to the Rochester catalyzes the growth of a notion that the sexes are equal in feeling and psychological connection that allows Jane to desire for freedom from the rigid restraints acknowledge her “Eyre” sensibility. of Victorian patriarchal society. Her release Rochester recognizes that he is in fact of inhibition in the dark woods when the double of Jane by revealing he was once coming across Edward Rochester for the her equal when at he was her age. “I might first time allows both characters to see each have been as good as you—wiser, almost as other as supernatural beings—creatures of stainless. I envy your peace of mind, your the imagination. Jane believes Rochester clean conscience, your unpolluted memory” may be a Gytrash, a goblin or spirit that (Brontë 115). It is Rochester who envies takes the form of a horse or dog, while Jane, rather than the other way around, Rochester later admits he believed Jane to because he finds within her an affinity with have bewitched his horse. Interestingly, he is the self he could not preserve. In hopes of the only one to verbalize his fairy-tale cultivating and preserving the youthful spirit imaginations. The supernatural is meant to of Jane he had once known himself, be kept within the childhood sphere of the Rochester criticizes how unnatural she acts imagination that adults of reason are due to her constrained upbringing at supposed to overcome, but both Jane and Lowood. His outspokenness while detecting Rochester are using the supernatural to that her “self-love dreads a blunder” psychologically hold onto their youthful encourages Jane to embrace all selves and imaginations. During their second psychological parts of herself (Brontë 118). meeting, Rochester allows Jane to confront Jane’s experience with Rochester allows her the self she stifles by initiating a fanciful to liberate her own mind. Jane grows more conversation that causes Mrs. Fairfax, the self-aware by appropriating his male gaze, housekeeper, to raise her eyebrows at its and she claims that only she, not Blanche impropriety, signaling a transgression of Ingram, can charm him. After observing her Victorian socialization. Rochester’s double with another woman, Jane realizes observations imply his symbolic role as the unique psychological compatibility they Jane’s doppelgänger: he is the first to judge share. While reflecting on her love for her “elvish” watercolors that mix the natural Rochester, Jane thinks, “I have something in with the spiritual, presenting the my brain and heart, in my blood and nerves,

The Onyx Review, 2017, 2(2) K. R. Martel / CULTIVATING EYRE 16 that assimilates me mentally to him” (Brontë inextricable “string” under his left ribs 149). By freeing both her heart and her knotted to her bodily frame. The biblical rational mind, Jane is planting the seed of reference to Eve’s rib feminizes Rochester their future union. The use of the word as being created of Jane, merging their “assimilate” implies a conversion into likeness physically as well as externally and physical resemblance, allowing their foreshadowing their becoming each other’s equality within a romantic union to begin second selves in marriage. despite their differences of class. While Jane accepts the marriage Brontë continues to use Blanche Ingram, proposal, she has confronted her dual self in a socialite Rochester temporarily courts, as Rochester without breaking the shackles of the inverse of Jane, giving Blanche the Victorian restraint. Joining the life of the opportunity to say what Jane cannot in her gentry would require Jane to exchange her socially submissive station as a governess. independent identity and sensibility for Blanche announces to the party at something dependent and material. Even Thornfield, “I am resolved my husband shall before the reveal of Rochester’s marriage to not be a rival, but a foil to me” (Brontë 153). Bertha Mason, the mad woman in the attic, This is said before Blanche requests that Jane is wary of Rochester’s insistent Rochester sing with her “con spirito,” but wedding presents of dresses and jewels Rochester agrees only after saying he will because they represent a Victorian show her how things “should” be done. imprisonment of the woman’s identity. Her Implying that there is a different way things rejection of Rochester emphasizes that she should be done with Blanche tells the reader does not love him for having access to the that Rochester and Blanche are not spiritual wealth and freedom of the patriarchy that equals and do not highlight traits of the other she will never be able to obtain by herself.4 as foils. It is no coincidence that Rochester Connecting back to Rochester’s original proposes to Jane instead of Blanche as he is refractive judgement that Jane was not the true foil to Jane. Foils in literature loving herself, she rejects becoming his depend on each other and often explore a mistress by declaring, “I care for myself...I different path for the antagonist. Rochester will keep the law given by God; sanctioned is the experienced gentleman of society to by man. I will hold to the principles received Jane’s inexperienced but questing spirit. by me when I was sane, and not mad—, as I Despite differences in Victorian constructs am now” (Brontë 270). Jane is socially of gender and society, Jane and Rochester rebellious in creating her independent are equal in their feelings and respect for identity through encouragement by her own one another. Their psychological likeness self within Rochester. Adrienne Rich argues provides a gateway out of Victorian that “...work of self-creation—is propriety and emerges as a divine “con undervalued, or seen as the bitter fruit of spirito” in the text: “...it is my spirit that “penis envy,” or the sublimation of addresses your spirit; just as if both had repressed eroticism, or the meaningless rant passed through the grave, and we stood at of a ‘manhater’” (Rich, “Compulsory” 652). God’s feet, equal, just as we are!” (Brontë 216). Their equality of souls surpasses Victorian social authority and allows the two 4 Gilbert and Gubar argue that the real impediment to individuals to become one. In the proposal Jane’s marriage with Rochester is Jane’s imprisoned female “hunger, rage, and rebellion” in a “secret scene, Rochester feels he is physically tied dialogue of self and soul” that the coming-of-age to Jane as her doppelgänger by an depends on (Gilbert and Gubar 339)

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Jane refuses to give into passion over reason love she shares with Rochester (Brontë 330). until Rochester becomes her double in St. John is the suffocating ice to Jane’s relation to Victorian conventions as well as internalized passionate spirit whereas psychological and spiritual affinity. Once Rochester is the communing fire. After Jane Jane Eyre develops love and acceptance of rejects St. John, he grows colder and his herself, she must physically leave Thornfield presence reminds her that her “vivacity” is to allow Rochester to complete his own distasteful to him (Brontë 339). Jane’s evolution to return to the spirit of Jane he inability to act freely around her cousin had lost under Victorian socialization. gives insight to what their marriage could be If Jane cannot become one with like: one of obedience and restraint, both of Rochester in a morally upstanding, legal which have caged Jane except while at marriage that exists within her own terms of Thornfield. Brontë composes the Eyre- equality, she will not have him at all. To Rivers relationship for Jane to act without remain at Thornfield would compromise the guide of her doppelgänger to resist and everything that Jane confronts and liberate herself from the hand of Victorian strengthens about herself through her society. Once Jane refuses to settle for St. doppelgänger. Brontë then provides Jane a John Rivers and removes her inhibitions, she path that leads to St. John Rivers, a cousin may return to Rochester with more certainty and clergyman who proposes Jane a strict in herself than ever before. partnership marriage, which deviates from Rich discards the Freudian critical belief the personal growth of her dual nature she that the blinding of Rochester in the burning found with Rochester. Jane finds a common of Thornfield is castration, and instead ground with St. John in their “physical, argues that this allows Rochester and Jane to emotional and spiritual exile” at Morton achieve “sexual equality—spiritual and (Bennett 19). Their repression, equal social practical” instead (Rich, “Temptations” status, and their family ties as cousins 481). In following this ideal, the youthful seemingly makes St. John Rivers a better passion within Jane demands an equal match for Jane than Rochester. The Eyre- parallel that transcends biological sex or Rivers relationship is conceivably a more gender. This requires Rochester to revert realistic outlet for Jane; a relationship that back to this spirit he failed to preserve due upholds Victorian rationality and constraint to his malleability by Victorian society. founded in a moral servitude. Jane leaves Rochester returns to his younger personhood her unequal match with Rochester, gaining by both the literal and figurative burning of the strength to “discover her place in the real everything Victorian society has constructed world”, which leads her to a match of of his life since he was Jane’s age, pre- equality in sense with St. John Rivers marriage to Bertha Mason. He is absolved of (Gilbert and Gubar 364). However, this his marriage, the stately symbol of his status match is unequal in terms of their views of and privilege in Thornfield, and his sexual love and marriage. St. John’s is a conjugal promiscuity to become equal to Jane. With love that intends to use Jane as an extension Jane’s discovery of her inheritance, she of himself and his religious work whereas emerges in her own evolution as equal, if Rochester’s is a passionate love that has no not superior, to Rochester, but she strips other use of Jane but to love her. Jane rejects away the constraint of class that comes with her cousin’s marriage proposal because he is wealth by sharing her inheritance with her like a brother rather than a “kindred,” cousins. Like a phoenix out of the ash of referring to the kindred spirit and romantic Thornfield, Rochester has completed his

The Onyx Review, 2017, 2(2) K. R. Martel / CULTIVATING EYRE 18 physical rebirth into the essence of Jane he earnest love and respect. The marriage to has recovered from within. Their equality in Rochester rejects marriage as a social and the physical world now matches their economic necessity in using women to equality in the spiritual world. Jane returns secure male wealth and power. In viewing to Rochester after hearing his spirit call for the externalization of Jane’s two her. Their superstition shared within their psychological parts into a shared whole, blood assumes being of the same flesh. Jane which Brontë fuses together in a marriage to tells the reader, “I am my husband’s life as the doppelgänger, Jane is in one sense fully as he is mine. No woman was ever marrying herself. Her marriage to Rochester nearer to her mate than I am; even more is symbolic of Jane’s commitment to self- absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his acceptance that frees her second self from flesh” (Brontë 384). Her mirrored likeness the looking-glass in the red room. As a within her doppelgänger is now externalized doppelgänger, Rochester provided a and forms a single identity, completing her psychological conscience that encouraged confrontation with her psychological Jane to release her passionate identity, duality. Recognized by God in matrimony showing her the life she could have had in and by Victorian society in law, Jane and an upside down universe, where she is male Rochester marry and she becomes his “prop and of status, where there is equality under and guide” (Brontë 382). As a married Victorian conventions. Acknowledging that couple, Jane gives birth to a son as a final Jane and Rochester come together by corporeal realization of their beings in body shedding the identities that society has and spirit becoming one. reflected onto them or perhaps even By marrying her doppelgänger Edward predetermined for them, they enter life Rochester, Jane is assimilating her two together as one at Ferndean in marriage. selves into one and enters an adulthood of This is where Jane can finally be free to be self-love that is independent from the herself; isolated from society in a place of Victorian societal standards for women and nature with a man who has no other motive their marriageability. To claim that the but to love her as his emotional, ending of Jane Eyre is un-feminist is itself psychological, and spiritual equivalent. un-feminist; it fails to respect a woman’s personal choice in attempting to best serve herself while navigating a world dominated by men—even if that means entering a Bibliography marriage. In fact, Jane does not subscribe to the institution of marriage as set by Bennett, Kelsey L. “Exile and the Victorian conventions. As Adrienne Rich so Reconciling Powers of the Natural perfectly describes Jane’s decision to go Affections in Jane Eyre.” Brontë back to Rochester, “It is not patriarchal Studies, vol. 37, no. 1, 2012, pp. 19-29. marriage in the sense of a marriage that Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Ed. Richard J. stunts and diminishes the woman; but a Dunn. Norton Critical Edition. Norton, continuation of this woman’s creation of 2001. Print. herself” (Rich, “Temptations” 483). Jane is Cixous, Hélène. “The Laugh of the returning to what has been confiscated from Medusa.” Signs, vol. 1, no. 4, 1976, pp. marriage by the patriarchy—the idea that a 875-893. man and woman can enter a union without a Gilbert, Sandra M., and Gubar, Susan. The power dynamic and mutually coexist in Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century

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Literary Imagination. Yale University Press, 1979, pp. 336-371. Print. Horney, Karen. Feminine Psychology, 1922- 1937. 1967. Norton Library, 1993. Print. Irigaray, Luce. The Sex Which is Not One. 1977. Cornell University Press, 1985. Print. Jackson, Rosemary. “Narcissism and Beyond: A Psychoanalytic Reading of Frankenstein and Fantasies of the Double.” Aspects of Fantasy: Selected Essays from the Second International Conference on the Fantastic in Literature in Film. Ed. William Coyle. Greenwood Press, 1986. pp. 43-53. Print. Meyer, Susan. “Colonialism and Figurative Strategy in Jane Eyre.” Victorian Studies, vol. 33, no. 2, 1990, pp. 247- 268. Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea. 1966. Norton Critical Edition. Norton, 1998. Print. Rich, Adrienne. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and the Lesbian Existence.” Signs, vol. 5, no. 4, 1980, pp. 631-660. Rich, Adrienne. “Jane Eyre: The Temptations of a Motherless Woman” Jane Eyre. Norton Critical Edition, pp. 469-483. Print. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Three Women’s Texts and a Critique of Imperialism.” Critical Theory, vol. 12, no. 1, 1985, pp. 243-261.

Submitted February 19, 2017 Accepted with revisions April 12, 2017 Accepted April 24, 2017

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